Dale Owen Merrill 49

For more than 40 years Dale lived in Goleta, California, where he was a school principal and a private pilot. As the first person in his family to attend college, he valued his education at Reed.

“Reed gave me a deep appreciation for a fine education,” he said. “I wish I had been better educated when I arrived; I would have chosen a different major.”

He wrote his thesis World Federalism: a Contemporary Social Movement with Prof. Read Bain [sociology 1947–49] advising, and credited Reed with instilling confidence in his ability to do hard academic work. As a day-dodger, Dale also felt that socially he ended up a veritable recluse. “Reed is especially heir to such problems of personality development since many high-IQ people have suffered ridicule in the public school system because of their intellectual abilities,” he said.

His fond memories of Reed included Prof. Frank Griffin’s [math 1911-56] Math for Non-Science Majors, and Prof. Corrine Pouteau [French 1934-49] and Dorothy Robinson Ainslie ’46 working as gypsy croupiers at the United World Federalists Carnival.

After graduating, he worked for the United World Federalists in California and taught at Southern Oregon College in Ashland, and at an elementary school in Salem, Oregon. In 1962, he got his master’s from Claremont McKenna College and began teaching in Goleta, California, where he quickly became principal of Goleta Union School.

Dale enjoyed raising cymbidium orchids, dahlias, and his two children Pat and Paul. His wife, Helen, passed away in 2011.